The state chronicle., 1887-06-23
THE TRUE CHER.
He Adopts What is New Only When il
is Better Than she old.

He Adopts What is New Only When il
is Better Than :he old.
Especial Cor. STATE CHRoNIcLEl
The teacher stands to day in the front
Of social progress. There is no need to
beg place for him in any rank of society
Wherever he deserves to 60 he walks a
peer among his fellows. Not all who han
die the lancet are surgeons, nor all who
flourish brief are lawyers-neither are
all who WELD the crayon at the black
board, or the text book on the rostrum en-
titled to the designation Of teacher.
1t is true that it took centuries to devel-
OPP the scientific physician of to-day from
the rude bafber-chlrurgeOn Of the past,
| and that the clerk or Scriyener of Glanville
| and Fle'a's time assembled painfully the
| ladder that reaches, to day, the social emf
nence of the learned counsellor of the law
| 1t is not strange, therefore, that the art
aud science of teaching acquired conference
| by like gradatiOn. But it is fortunate for
| humanity that its spirit has III no age been
utterly lost, and that now with accelerat
ed power it marches on TO the conquest Of
! the powers of darkness.
Time WAS, it is true, when among Oh
;>noient English forefathers, such a selti-
ment as the following could be uttered
with applause, as the lines from banquet
speech, yet preserved. show:
II swear by Gods body, that I'd rather
that my son should hang than st2dy let
| tiers. For 1t becomes the SONS of gentle
men to blow the horn nicely, to hunt
skilfully and to elegantly carry and train
a hawk. But the study of letters should
be left to the sons of ruSicS
How far has the pendulum of the
thought of the world swung from the
standpoint of that Cossack i'll English flesh
and blood!
Did time and space permit, it woald be
Il labor OF love, to essay TO describe the
teacher who justly deserves the name and
fame that the Id is ready to accord his
profession.
He is not al, animated Old Mortality,
groElns among the tombs, and striving
eVer TO cut anew the epitsphs of departed
glories. He does not believe that all wis
dom has been plucked from the tree of
knowledge, and he alone has the key of
the garner. He knows that he sage as
always the learner that Socrates was ready
| to receive from the boy OF the Athenlan
market place-that Newton hlmself in his
dying hours declared that he had but pick
ed up a few shells or the shore, while the
great ocean Of truth lay all unexplored
before him. 1t matters not whether the
SHOWS of winter besprinkle his brow, the
unquenchable fires within, oi devotion to
his art, and love for his pupil place him
always and forever in the vanguard of
every genuine advance, and does not hest
tate to adopt that which is new, if better
than the old.
On the other hand, the true teacher is
not the man who is ever catching at the
novel and the specous shortcuts to
knowledge, advertised in every age, and
again and again, in protean form but al
ways as the new learning. This is the
or. owl of TO -Ia, in,
tanting educational effort
This is the age of materaiis1a. Its
rampant influence is everywhere Vel
appointed school-roomS, finely illustrated
books, pleasing mechanical exercises, and
masses OF pupil swayed by distant rulers,
: through subordinate officers present a
gitterng array TO the eye
) Empirical methods are exhibited by
teachers taught from abroad and please
!, and distract the thoughts Of numbers OF
young minds just set upon the difficult
[ path of faithful and conscientious instruc
ton.
1t would be amusing, if it were not sad
to the teacher of experience, to see a hun
dred exploded fancies of other davs grave
ly introduced to him under novel name.
as discoveries OF recent progress, and unl
4 versal panaceas for ignorance.
This spirit finds another manifestation
IN the demand for specialists as instruc
Il tors Alas tor the people whose instruc
I toTs are one sided men, acute but narrow
I ! without the breadth of general culture
S and sympathy for the needs Of the who'll
: intellectual man.
q Were there no brave men before Aga
: memnon?
: The people of the very communitie
;, whence these mechanical systems are de
a rived are crying out that there is nothin.
t but mental cultivation in their schools
u nothing but the love tf material gain a
an ideal. The teacher Of the heart, il
II personal contact and aft ctiouate nteres
l. mas Nahlshed-the school l., vast ma
/, chine
e The man who gloriies his system an,
IS his methods, however mpgitorious.
d wasting strength on the side ISSUES. Til
II teacher Is an artist-he must be born t.
IS his work, and his skill perfected by year
a OF labor. Think you that Or Arnold
r may be reproduced by patent processes
1t 1t was once said with sneer that Mort
le Carolina was the most illiterate of State
l. 1t was probably untrue, but thank God
)I she was also known as the most honest %
Is states. WeN We remember when he
+: bonds were highest in the market Of Wa
d street.
it Well Will it be for her if the children 0
IN to-day prove the moral equals of the ster
~ old hero who lies under "A heap of rud
p stones, rugged as the stern Republica
er simplicity enshrined therein-graud Oh
Macon.
The true teacher will be immortal
le Archimedes will live, while the Egyptla
n prince will be nameless Seneca Will teac
s. the world, though Nero slsy him. Whethe
ed ne wear the dladem of popular regard Q
10 no, generations will rise up to call hi
IS blessed.